“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:7–11)

When I was in primary school, one of the subjects in the government schools of the day was Bible Education. We would usually go through one of the stories in Scripture, answer some questions, and then draw a picture of what we’d learnt. I remember when we went through Genesis, there were often the accounts of God speaking to people – to Adam, to Cain, to Noah, to Abraham. So when it came to drawing the scene, I understood that I was supposed to draw God. No one had explained the second commandment to me yet. But what was interesting is that the pictures I drew of God had Him in a humanoid form, but the face was always blank. I don’t really remember what my reasoning was, but something made me always depict God as a shining being with no particular face.

I wonder how many people really worship a faceless God. I don’t mean that primarily in the physical sense. A God with no particular personhood or personality. In fact, it is very popular today for people to say they believe in some impersonal God. They will use terms like a Higher Power, the Maker, the Creator. But there are no particulars about this God. We don’t know what He is like. We don’t know if he likes some things and doesn’t like others, or even if he likes things in any way similar to us. We don’t know if he is far removed from us, or very close to us. We don’t know if he speaks words, communicates, or even wants to communicate. And since this being is vague, so abstract, so theoretical, there is no speaking of having a relationship with that God. It would be like speaking of having a relationship with a cumulonimbus cloud, or a relationship with the moon. Faceless, impersonal, featureless, unknowable.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote, “To find out the Father and Maker of all this universe is a hard task, and when we have found Him, to speak of Him to all men is impossible.” Plato said, if you found God, he would remain indescribable, ineffable, incomprehensible, so vast, so glorious that no words could capture Him.

Of course, many people want it that way. Unregenerate man sometimes wants to keep God impersonal. People prefer a faceless God, because a faceless, distant, abstract God makes no demands on us, does not see us, is not concerned with us, and will not judge us.

Even Christians can fall into the trap of worshipping a God who becomes remote to them, distant, abstract, theoretical. Their worship of Him is purely by rote, not by relationship. Instead of looking to the revealed nature of God in Jesus, they go on searching for God in the abstract. To even professing believers, they tend to think of Jesus as a lesser being, a path to God, but not God Himself.

The Bible insists on a very different God. It reveals a God who is the ultimate person, who made us persons because He is one, who can be known, communed with, loved, and enjoyed. He has features; He is recognisable, knowable. And the Bible’s grand story is that God took the ultimate step of making Himself knowable to human beings, by becoming One Himself.

The Bible teaches that the search for what God is like is over when we have found Jesus Christ. The bold and scandalous claim of the Bible is that God is fully revealed in Jesus. To look upon Jesus is to see the infinite, invisible, omnipresent, God in a finite, visible, physical Man. To see Jesus is to see God in recognisable form. To see Jesus is to put a face on God.

Jesus made that claim multiple times and in multiple ways in the Gospel of John. One of the loudest and clearest is found here in John 14:7-11 in a short conversation with one of His disciples, Philip.

John 14 is part of a five-chapter section known as the Upper Room Discourse, a farewell lesson that Jesus gave His disciples the night before His crucifixion. He is explaining to them what the Christian life will be when He is gone. He is no longer speaking to those who doubt Him, but to those who should know Him. They are troubled that He is going, but He assures them that He will send the Spirit in His place, and also that He will return and receive them to Himself.

Jesus has just told Thomas and the others that He Himself is the way to the Father. He brings the truth, the life, and to dwell with God forever, you must go through the door of the God-Man, Jesus. And now another disciple, Philip is going to make a statement about seeing the Father which Jesus responds to that will answer the question, What should I look for if I am looking to know God? Where will I look to see God? What will I see if I see God?

Look out for the three deep mysteries that Jesus opens up to us about Himself, about God. First, there is revelation, followed by a reason, followed by the deep reality.

I. The Revelation: You Already Know the Father

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Jesus makes a profound statement. To know Jesus, is to know the Father. If had truly known Jesus as a Person, then they would have known the Father as a Person.

Now this is not the first time Jesus has said something like this. In John 8:19, He said to the group that was debating Him, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” He told the crowd in John 10:30 “I and the Father are One.”

And just so we know who we are talking about, in John 8:54 Jesus said, “It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. The Father would be the One that the Jews, up to that point, would have understood as God. But now, Jesus says, to know Me is to know Him.

Even Jesus’ disciples, up to now, have not fully understood who He is. They believed He is Messiah, the Son of God. But the full implications of that have not yet dawned on them: to know Jesus is to know the Father. They are looking at, listening to, speaking to the One who completely reveals the Father.

So Jesus says to them, from now on you do know Him. From now on, since I am making it plain to you, you have seen the Father.

Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone, asking them about someone you are looking for, only to find out that the person you’re talking to is the person you were looking for? Here the disciples are finding out that the Father whom they have been praying to, is explained and revealed in this Man in front of them. They already know Him.

Now that’s not what they, or anyone expects. But Scripture disagrees. It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God always had within Himself His self-expression, His self-communication, His Word, His Son. Hebrews 1:3 calls it the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person. And this self-communication took on human form. To know that Man would be to know what a human could know about God.

So here is the good news. If you want to know God, and know Him the way you know people in your life, then there are four books that record what He was like when among us. They’re called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Read them. Immerse yourself in them. Learn the Person and work of Christ.

This is the revelation. But it still needs some explaining, some reasons why to know Jesus is to know the Father. That comes next as Philip makes his statement.

II. The Reason: the Son Fully Reveals the Father

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Show us the Father, and we’ll be content. Philip says something that we can all at once sympathise with and criticise. Positively, Philip wants to know and see God. He is likely asking for a kind of vision, a theophany, an appearance of God, like Isaiah saw. Philip is a God-seeker, and like us, he wants his faith to turn to sight.

But negatively, Philip is not connecting the dots. Jesus’s answer to Philip is a gentle rebuke. Philip, you’ve been with me day after day for years. We have walked together in close fellowship. Do you not yet understand who I am? Do you not get it? Do you not recognise Me for who I am?

Evidently, Philip had not, because he still thinks Jesus is a kind of messenger, but not the sender of the message. He wants to get past Jesus to the Father, as if they are different.

What Jesus says in His reply is stunning. I don’t need to show you a vision of the Father, Philip, because you have already seen the Father. He who has seen Me has seen the Father. It would just be repetition.

Now wait a minute. Surely, if Jesus showed them a vision of God on His throne, that would be different, and more impressive than seeing Jesus of Nazareth in front of them? Apparently not. Yes, it would be different in quality, but they would not be getting more of God in all the important and meaningful ways. Because the essence of God is who He is, His Person, His nature, His attributes.

The glory of God is not primarily blinding light, clouds of glory, holy fire, a majestic throne room. Even that is just a manifestation of the invisible God for the sake of men and angels.

The real glory of God is who He is: that He is all powerful and gentle, all-knowing and yet meticulous, all-present and yet manifest, majestic and yet meek, eternal and yet youthful, pure and yet forgiving, just and yet gracious, exacting and yet generous. The glory of God is the unique, holy God that He is. And all that can be known of this character of God, as far as humans are concerned was manifest in Jesus.

Do you remember how the book of John opened?

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. (John 1:18)

God in His essence, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are not visible. So the Son, in becoming man, has declared God to the world.

The man who fought for the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century was Athanasius of Alexandria. He once said it this way, “He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father.”

Paul writes it this way in Colossians: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

As verse 14 of chapter 1 put it: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

It’s funny that we are just like Philip. We think the glory of God must be brilliant light, overpowering angelic song, triumphant heavenly armies. We don’t realise that the glory of God is telling a weeping sinful woman that her sins are forgiven. The glory of God is taking children in His arms. The glory of God is teaching crowds of lost and confused people. The glory of God is clearing out a Temple of covetousness. The glory of God is challenging legalist rabbis and refuting their scribal traditions. The glory of God is healing blind eyes, both physically and spiritually. The glory of God is opening deaf ears, physically and spiritually. The glory of God is calling the dead to life, both physically and spiritually. The glory of God is refusing to call legions of angels while hanging on a Roman cross, accepting the burden of other’s sins.

John could write that, decades later: we beheld His glory. We realised that we saw, in human form, the character and person and nature of God. Seeing some physical blinding light might be impressive, but then what? Would you know God better? Would you love Him? Would you trust Him? Would you submit to Him? Would you be grateful to Him? All the important ways of knowing God are matters of personhood, not appearance. We know what we need to know about God in Jesus Christ.

“Christ is the living Bible; we may read much of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We shall study no other book when we come to heaven.” THOMAS MANTON

What are you looking for in a vision of God? Do you want merely an impressive sight? Or do you want to know the Person that is God? If you are still looking for some kind of vision, Jesus’ words to Philip are words to you. You already know the Father, he who seen Jesus has seen the Father.

First came the revelation – you already know the Father. Second came the reason – the Son fully reveals the Father. But to complete things, Jesus will now explain why that is so. He is going to explain the deep reality.

III. The Reality: The Father and Son Indwell Each Other

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

Here Jesus begins to explain how it is that seeing the Son is seeing the Father, He explains the reality behind the revelation. Some people have misunderstood verse 9. They have stopped there, as if Jesus had nothing more to say. To see Jesus is to see the Father. From that, they conclude that Jesus and the Father are the same person, and from there, they create the heresy of modalism.

Modalism says that God is only one person, and sometimes that person appears as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Spirit, different modes, or appearances of the same person.

But all you have to do is read the next verses to see that Jesus and the Father are not the same person. The Father gives Jesus the words to speak. The Father gives Jesus authority. The Father does works through Jesus. Again and again, Jesus says that He has been sent by the Father and is returning to the Father.

So the reality behind this truth that Jesus reveals God is not that Jesus and the Father are identical. Instead, here is how Jesus explains it. Look at the language of verse 10 and verse 11.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me,

This is the language of mutual indwelling. The Father, who is fully God has the Son indwelling Him. The Son, who is fully God, has the Father indwelling Him. But this is not easy to understand. What does it mean that they indwell each other? Actually, the world has many examples of mutual indwelling. Right now, we can see because of light. But light, visible, white light, is actually made up of red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet that indwell each other to make up white light. We sang songs this morning, and the piano played chords, where notes were struck at the same time, but they harmonised and dwelt within each other and made one unified sound. In terms of human persons, Paul tells us that marriage reveals a sacred secret: two who are no longer two, but sacredly one. And the result of that union often brings a new life a life inside the mother, even while the life of the mother is inside the child. These are incomplete, partial ways of seeing the idea that discrete things can be so closely identified that they are within each other.

They are ways of seeing the highest reality of all, that Father and Son, through separate, are so closely identified that when one speaks, so does the other, when one works so does the other.

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23)

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Matthew 11:27)

But what about the Spirit? One of the great champions of the doctrine of the Trinity was Gregory of Nazianzus. He wrote about how God progressively revealed the truth about Himself so as to no overburden us.

“The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Ghost; lest perhaps people might, like men loaded with food beyond their strength, or presenting eyes as yet too weak to bear it to the sun’s light, risk the loss even of that which was within the reach of their powers.”

Of course, it seems like a scandalous claim. Why should they believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son who indwells the Father, and the Father indwells the Son? Look again at Jesus answer to Philip.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves,

Consider His words and His works. What sort of words has Jesus spoken? What sort of works has Jesus done? No man ever spoke like this man, said the men sent to arrest Him. Turning water into wine, healing a man lame his whole life, feeding the 5000, walking on water, healing a man born blind, raising a man from the dead. Who can do these works? Who can supply this wisdom? Jesus is truly a man, but He is no mere man.

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who once said of Jesus:

“I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and… the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections! From the first day to the last He is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and infinitely gentle…Everything in Him astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truths which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things….I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the Gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature can offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or explain it. Here everything is extraordinary.”

Napoleon had done what Jesus proposed. If you struggle to believe that Jesus of Nazareth indwells the Father and the Father indwells Him, then consider what he said, and consider what He did. If God can become a man, and God did become a man, then the only man that that could ever have been was Jesus Christ.

God is no longer unknowable, abstract. He is no longer unreachable, mysterious.

How will God see me if I come to Him? Look to Jesus in the Gospels. How did He receive people? What will God do with my sin? Look to Jesus. What did He do with people’s sin? What if I am broken and deeply regret my sin? Look to Jesus. What did he do when people wept at His feet over their sin? How will God see my weakness and my confusion. Look to Jesus in the Gospel. What did He do when He saw crowds of people, lost and uninstructed? Four Gospels tell us how Jesus responded to proud people, self-righteous people, truly seeking people, how He treated Jews and how He treated Gentiles, how He responded to grief, and loss, and pain, and sickness, how he treated the aged, the young, women, children. Four Gospels tell us how He worshipped, how He lived, how He died, how He rose. When you pray, when you worship, when you sing: this is the face you are looking at. I don’t mean his physical features – I mean the kind of person He is. This is, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 4:6:

“the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)